A personal exploration of Disney media along with the chronicling of my many trips to Disneyland through the years. And while this is primarily a Disney and Disneyland blog, along the way I occasionally contribute writings on some other pop culture and media topics just for the fun of it. There are almost 800 posts to this blog. Click through the Archives and I hope you have a good time. Enjoy The Disneyland Traveler Blog (completely without ads or annoying attempts to sell you anything).

Disneyland Traveler Blog Sites

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Disneyland's Grand Canyon Diorama Turns 55

Happy Easter everyone. As mentioned in Disney Parks Blog (link) today, March 31st, marks the 55th anniversary of the opening of the Grand Canyon Diorama display as part of the "grand circle tour" of the Disneyland Railroad. Fans of the railroad and diorama celebrate. Mrs. DisneylandTraveler does not. As I hear on each and every trip when we pass through the dioramas - "I hate this thing. It's so.....old". I can't say has a blame her too much. When we go to Disneyland (like we are 2 weeks from today), we take the train....a lot. It's not just a ride, it's much welcomed transportation for those of us not as young as we used to be. So Mrs. DLT has probably passed through the Grand Canyon Diorama and the adjacent Primeval World Diorama (which came a few years later) a hundred times or more over the course of her life. Yes, the diorama is old but it is part of Disneyland history and tradition and something Walt was quite proud of.

Disney Parks Blog also published a series of photos of Walt Disney at the opening of the Grand Canyon Diorama (link) in 1958. One is tacked on to the bottom of this post but I will include the rest with my Photos of Walt Disney section of this blog. Every time you see a photo of Walt in Disneyland, the man is absolutely brimming with pride. He should be. The man with Walt is Fred Gurley who has a train named after him that runs around Disneyland to this day. Fred was chairman of the Santa Fe Railroad and a friend of Walt's and a Disneyland sponsor.